Abbe May at the Wesley Anne

Melissa, Courtenay and I went to see Abbe May perform a blues/rock solo gig at the Weseley Anne last night. We always try and see her when she's in town, and as usual she delivered. The style was a bit different this time, as she was on her own and had to adapt some of her songs to fit the format. Abbe also performed a bunch of covers, as she explained afterwards to "keep it fun for me", and you could tell from the performance. Especially good were the two covers originally by Willie Dixon, whom Abbe cites as a major influence. 'Twas great

She's playing the Edinburgh Castle (in Melbourne) next Friday, and she's back at the Wesley Anne on the 27th.  Go see her.  Its a bargain.

RocKwiz

Its been a good week for music this week. In adition to seeing Darren Hanlon, we also went to the first filming session for season 5 of RocKwiz. Melissa was the nominated rock-brain from our table, and competed for a position on the show. Unfortunately she wasn't fast enough for the other freaks. A boatload of beer and a load of fun was had by all. I heartily recommend it to any person that likes music.

Darren Hanlon

We went to see Darren Hanlon at the Ruby Lounge Belgrave on Wednesday.

It rocked

Narelle's Boyfriend Dean is in town, and we went to see his DJ set at Luxe last night. Good work Deej, you had me dancing. He is playing again tonight (New Years) at 12am at the Bakery

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The Mountain Goats.... Again!

Yes, that's right. They keep on coming back, and we keep on going to see them. Another good performance from the boys. John snapped a G string (ohhh vicar!) in the first song, and to the crowd's dismay, didn't have a replacement. Luckily the support band had an acoustic guitar, so the entire gig was played with a borrowed guitar. They played Jenny so I was a happy camper.

Last Night, Melissa, Jason, Dzung, Jason's Parents and myself went to see The Automasters play at Mojos in Freemantle. The singer wearing the sunglasses is Jason's Brother Brendan Hutchens, who is a TV presenter on the ABC by day. They were ably supported by Petanque, whom we have also seen playing with the Burgers of Beef. Gotta love a band with a Moog in it.

The automasters will be playing at Mojos every Tuesday night for the month of January

The Mountain Goat's Triumphant Return

Last night, Melissa, Courtenay and myself went to see The Mountain Goats at the Rosemount Hotel in North Perth. We've seen John Darnielle live before, but not with his bass player, and not since he became quite popular.

Last time, John wasn't even the headline act, and as a result, there weren't as many fans there. It had a very intimate feel to it. He played material from most of his back catalog, including my favourite, "All Hail West Texas"

This time, the venue was much larger and there were a lot more people there. John got a lot more loving from the audience, and he reflected it with a high intensity, high energy (for John) performance. He mostly played songs from his latest album, The Sunset Tree, but still managed to finish off with "The best ever death metal band in denton" which was very good. John's bass player was very good too. His playing was very minimalistic, but placed just perfectly to fatten out the sound coming from this duo. In a departure from two piece convention, he didn't play purely rhythm either, quite often playing melody lines of his own. At one point, he launched into a brief bass solo, the only one I have ever heard that didn't come from the slap bass school of bass playing.

The Grates are Great!

Melissa, Courtenay and myself went to see the Grates (supported by the Fuzz) at the Amplifier Bar on Thursday. It turned out to be a great gig, mainly based upon the energy of the Grates' lead singer, Patience. She was dancing around the entire gig with a gigantic smile on her face. Her energy rubs off on the crowd, which made it a memorable night.

Apologies about the poor quality. I haven't mastered the art of Gig photography yet.

Love a bit of Cake!

We went to a cake gig last night. It was fabo! First we went to the newly refurbished and re-opened Vivace restaraunt for some fine dining. Kirsten had volunteered to drive us to the gig, then she was going to go out clubbing. By the time we got there, we had conviced her to pay for a ticket at the door and come in.

A good thing too. Despite a crappy sound system at the Lookout and the lead singer John McCrea having a sore throat, they were fantastic. Everyone in the crowd was going nuts and singing at the top of their lungs. And that was just the first song - Sheep go to heaven, goats go to hell.